Police search under wrecked vehicles in search for Jessica Boyce's body

Thursday, 24 October 2019

Police search a Canvastown property as part of the Jessica Boyce homicide investigation.

Canvastown residents are shocked their small settlement is at the centre of a homicide investigation, as police search a property for the body of missing Marlborough woman Jessica Boyce.

The property, in rural Marlborough, is littered with close to 100 wrecks of old car, utes, vans and buses.

Detective Senior Sergeant Ciaran Sloan says someone knows what happened to missing woman Jessica Boyce.

A tractor, driven by a police officer, could be seen lifting and pulling the vehicles away on Thursday, with officers checking the ground underneath.

Police confirmed officers were looking for a body at the property. The Canvastown search was expected to finish on Thursday night, and no arrests had been made, a police spokesperson said.

Police are searching for a body at a Canvastown property littered with old vehicles.

* Missing Marlborough woman's family hopes homicide investigation leads to answers

* Police start homicide investigation into disappearance of Marlborough woman**

Police have confirmed part of the search at Canvastown is for the body of missing woman Jessica Boyce.

A resident, who did not want to be named, said Canvastown was a 'small peace-loving town with good people'.

'Nothing ever happens here.'

Parents and grandparents on the school run on Thursday said they were shocked, but were looking after their children.

A tractor is being used to move vehicle wrecks in the search for a body at a Canvastown property.

'It is a bit of a worry that there is an investigation that we are not aware of across the road,' a mother said.

Police take the red Holden ute Jessica Boyce was last seen in for further forensic examination.

Boyce, 27, went missing in March. Her disappearance was upgraded to a homicide investigation on Tuesday.

Police had also searched a property in the coastal township Wharanui, 60 kilometres south of Blenheim.

The disappearance of Marlborough woman Jessica Boyce was upgraded to a homicide on Tuesday.

That search had finished and some 'items of interest' had been taken away for further forensic examination. One person was at the Wharanui property when police arrived and was spoken to, but nobody was arrested.

Detective Senior Sergeant Ciaran Sloan had a message on Wednesday for 'those struggling with what they know about Jessica's disappearance'.

'Come forward to ease that struggle,' Sloan said.

Sloan said those responsible were likely acquaintances of Boyce. Boyce's mother Kay Johnstone said in April her daughter had been suffering with depression, anxiety, memory problems due to a car accident two years earlier, and was self-medicating with drugs.

A team of six Blenheim detectives and one detective sergeant had spent the last seven months sifting through more than 120 tip-offs to eliminate false leads, before the case became a homicide investigation this week.

More than 40 investigators, dog handlers, scene-of-crime officers and specialist search crew were taking part in the searches with police from the top of the south and Canterbury involved.

On Tuesday, police said they believed the red Holden Rodeo ute Boyce was last seen in had been deliberately planted at Lake Chalice, at Mount Richmond Forest Park, to mislead police.

'Investigations of this nature do take time, and we're well aware of the public's expectations but it's not a TV show, and the reality is it does take time,' Sloan said.